2600x overclock with stock cooler

You should never go over 80°C. 54°C seems pretty high in idle. If you want to overclock your CPU further, get a beefy aircooler or an AIO with 240mm radiator. But I think you should leave the CPU as it is with the stock cooler since Ryzen 2600x has turbo boost up to 4.2 GHz.

I believe the maximum temperature for the 2600X is 91°C, which is pretty much an industry standard for CPUs. Whilst I do recommend that people don't go beyond 75°C, it's important to remember that stress tests like Cinebench don't represent day-to-day use. Every single CPU thread isn't going to be running at 100% all the time, every day.

The stock cooler let's them get a bit warmer. Whether that's too hot is up to you. You are technically safe and can go to I think 90c or so, but just get a cooler.

Do you really want your cpu constantly running that close to the max temp? Nobody can argue that heat wears the cpu and gpu down, simply because it can go to a higher temp does not mean it is wise to do so. A decent cooler does not cost much and can easily last for 2 or 3 CPU's.

I don't understand this post that's saying because it boost to 4.2 use stock cooling. It will boost as high as it can based on cooling and power headroom. Unless they 2600x is different than everything I read about the others the boost clock can vary from person to person and you want the gpu running cooler.

If you can't even OC to 3.9 and stay cool then get a good cooler. I use a decent cooler on a 2600 and can easily OC to 4.0 on all cores and I hit like 61c during stress test. It auto boost me on all cores between 3.85 and 3.95 so I don't see the point to OC and the 2600x should be the same.

You can OC, but really don't need to. With good cooling and power I think a 2600x should push all cores between 4.0 and 4.2. Sell your wraith spire on eBay for 20$ and now you covered 30 to 65% of the cost of a good cooler.

One thing though, before doing anything use it in normal conditions and see how it is. Try it while gaming and see the max temps you are consistently hitting and try it in everything else you do. If you are consistently staying below like 72c with the occasional burst higher, then save the money. If everything runs great and it only sometimes pushes above 75c then you are good for now.

Do some reading into how the ryzen boost works, it will probably convince you it's not even worth it to OC.

Are you using monitoring software? If so, pay attention to how it's boosting the cores when you run a benchmark. You might see 2 cores on 4.2 and then 4 on 3.7, maybe they all will go to 3.9 or 4.1. I don't think you need to "push it" at all, just look at what it does automatically and the resulting temps

Just use the stock settings. Your "overclock" is lower than default settings with the 2600x